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Falling Is Still Flying: A Eulogy for #Occupy

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Falling Is Still Flying: A Eulogy for #Occupy

by

Abby Zimet

A raw, bleak, sometimes skeptical, ultimately hopeful look back at the season of Occupy - the inspiration it sparked, its dirt and darkness, its cause of economic justice and 99% rhetoric coupled with a fierce need "to serve each other, to keep each other whole and safe...to matter to each other in ways that weren’t mediated by" our existing institutions, its role as "messenger from the future, not so much fighting the system as explaining to the old way of doing things that it had already lost," its gutting by both internal and external forces but also its enduring spirit seen in Occupy Sandy, foreclosure defenses, the Rolling Jubilee. From Wired.

"No one walked away from Occupy the same person. The occupiers will always say 'we learned so much,' and the simplicity of the words belie how deep the change runs.... We learned there is a hostile army threaded through our nation. We learned that children can be casually brutalized, just to keep traffic from being inconvenienced....We learned that Americans can come together and care for one another. We learned there is a great and terrible spirit in this land, the sleeping giant of our spirits summed together."

Further

In the face of increasingly catastrophic climate news - rising sea levels, wildfires, drought - a team of Russian photographers with the non-profit AirPano have taken to the air in helicopters, airplanes, dirigibles and hot air balloons to offer virtual and panoramic tours of the planet's most stunning locations, urban to wilderness, to remind us what's at stake. Take note.